


[Analysis] Why Making Cassidy Casablancas the Rapist was an Absolute Shit Move

by asexualjuliet



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Essay, Meta, Referenced Childhood Sexual Abuse, Referenced Mass Murder, referenced rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27350008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualjuliet/pseuds/asexualjuliet
Summary: What it says on the tin. I’m so angry about this that I put together this deadass list of reasons that this was a shitty plot twist.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	[Analysis] Why Making Cassidy Casablancas the Rapist was an Absolute Shit Move

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh it’s been two months since i watched not pictured and i am not over it one bit!!  
> working title for this was “i am angery” because i am. 
> 
> like, i can deal with the murderer thing. it was shitty and reprehensible but i can see Cassidy’s train of thought and i recognize that he was really just a terrified kid who felt like he had no other way out. but the rapist thing Does Not Fucking Track, and here’s why:
> 
> (also keep in mind i’m asexual and up until the big reveal i was viewing cassidy’s, like, sex-repulsion as him being ace... yeah i knew it wasn’t canon but i had a crush on him and i love projecting my identity onto my favorite characters. maybe it tracks in the allosexual view, but that’s not how I view... anything).

**Reasons Why Making Cassidy Casablancas a Rapist Was An Absolute** **Shit** **Move:**

1\. It’s a blatant retcon of 1.21

Veronica spends 1.21:  _ A Trip to the Dentist  _ looking for the person who raped her at Shelly Pomroy’s party sophomore year. She eventually finds out that it was Duncan, who had also been drugged and who had believed the sex was consensual. During her questioning of them, Dick, Sean, and Cassidy confirm that Cassidy had been left alone in a bedroom with Veronica that night, but Cassidy swears he never touched her—“Look, I swear to god, I didn't touch you, Veronica. Okay, I mean, Dick, he was, he was all on me to, and there was, there was this girl, this, this freshman, her name's Cindy, and she's kind of, well, she's easy, you know, and me and her, we were, we were supposed to—I don't know, Dick—Dick, he set something up, okay, and then, and then she was all over Logan and then she left early with him.” Cassidy seems genuine, if not a bit nervous and rambling, and Rob Thomas himself has admitted that while Cassidy was introduced with the knowledge that he would later become the season two villain, the idea of him being the rapist didn’t come along until later. For the writers to reveal him as the rapist twenty-three episodes after the plotline was neatly tied up reads as an overt attempt to start some unnecessary drama.

2\. The show provides no solid reason as to why Cassidy raped Veronica. 

The only possible motives  _ Not Pictured  _ provides for the rape are Veronica’s assumption that Cassidy “wanted to prove [he was] a man” and the underlying implication that his childhood of sexual abuse thoroughly fucked him up both emotionally and sexually. Veronica’s assumption makes no sense when paired with the fact that nobody knew Cassidy had raped her until a year-and-a-half or so after the fact. If he really wanted to “prove himself,” he would have probably at least told his brother, who was the only reason he had the opportunity to rape Veronica in the first place. The argument can be made (as it was by my brother, who is sick of listening to me talk about this shit) that Cassidy didn’t tell anyone what happened because it was illegal, reprehensible, and would definitely have landed him in jail. This is all true, but Dick Casablancas is, despite his charm, a piece of garbage who would not have given a single fuck that Cassidy had raped Veronica. Dick demonstrates his tendency and ability to withhold important information from the authorities in 1.22:  _ Leave it to Beaver,  _ when he tells Cassidy “You need to chill out, Beav, right now. To the grave, man, that's what we said,” in reference to the fact that Logan was not in Mexico when Lilly was murdered. This information was (although not in the way Dick may have expected) crucial in implicating the real murderer of Lilly Kane. Both Dick’s lax regard for the law and the fact that he himself was the one who encouraged Cassidy to rape Veronica suggest that if Cassidy had told him what had really happened at Shelly’s party, there would be very,  _ very _ little risk of Dick going to the authorities. Thus, the motive of “prov[ing himself] a man,” doesn’t hold up: if Cassidy really wanted to prove himself to someone, it would be Dick, and he would probably have told him what happened. We know for a fact that this isn’t the case because when Veronica accuses Cassidy of raping her, he just responds “And Dick still thinks I’m a virgin. You see, I know how to keep a secret.” Another interpretation of the “proving himself as a man” thing is that Cassidy was attempting to prove to  _ himself _ that he was a man, but I honestly don’t know if that tracks, because he  _ knew _ why he was uncomfortable with sex and while proving to himself that he could have sex without being a “baby” about it might, like, make him feel better about himself, he chose to do it in such a way that is eerily similar to the abuse he suffered as a child. The other underlying motive that the show provides for the rape is Cassidy’s sexual trauma, which does not hold up for reasons I will address in entries #3 and #4. 

3\. It enforces the “cycle of abuse” stereotype

The cycle of abuse is a psychological theory that states that victims of abuse are more likely to become abusers themselves later in life than those who have not experienced abuse. This theory is not supported by much evidence, and there is, in fact, evidence against it. Cathy Spatz Widom of John Jay College conducted a study in which “only 3 percent of the sexually abused boys had become adult sexual offenders, and only 4 percent of adult sexual offenders had a confirmed history of sexual abuse.” Despite the facts disproving the cycle of abuse as a psychological theory, it remains a common trope used to either a). make the audience sympathize with an abuser (as in the case of Billy Hargrove in Stranger Things) or b. vilify an abuse victim (as in the case of Cassidy Casablancas). This trope enforces the harmful notion that past abuse can serve as a valid reason for harming others and serves to justify the actions of abusers. 

4\. It 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈𝓃’𝓉 𝒻𝓊𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀!

Throughout season two, Cassidy is shown to be extremely uncomfortable in even remotely sexual situations. He finds himself unable to engage in any kind of sexual activity with Mac, which is understandable given his past trauma. What  _ doesn’t  _ track is that this same trauma is used to explain why he raped Veronica. The show presents Cassidy as uncomfortable at the prospect of sex with Mac, which he was only entertaining because he genuinely cared about her, but it also presents him as an unremorseful rapist who took advantage of a girl at a party for some unspecified reason, which… doesn’t fucking track. Make a goddamn choice in how you want to portray this character and his trauma—Has a childhood of sexual abuse made him sex-repulsed or has it made him a sexually abusive piece of shit? You can’t go down both roads. 

5\. It’s clearly an attempt to make Cassidy seem more evil

It obviously took viewers some time to process the whole “Beaver’s a killer” thing because of Cassidy’s soft, sensitive nature. Given time, that plot twist can be broken down and understood: Cassidy was, first and foremost, a terrified, traumatized kid who felt like he had no other way out. His fear of what would happen if anyone found out about the abuse he suffered far outweighed any moral compass he may have possessed.  Though Cassidy’s actions were objectively extremely fucked up, he did have his reasons, and they are easy to understand if you look at the situation from his point of view. The reveal of Cassidy as the rapist reads as someone in the writing room being worried that no one in the audience will believe that this smart, sweet kid could ever be truly unforgivable, and trying to amp up the sheer amount of evil in Cassidy’s actions by discarding a large part of his character and making him do the most awful thing they could think of. 

Anyway, Cassidy as the rapist makes no fucking sense, rest in peace my ace Cassidy headcanon… you still live in my head, but in kind a shitty apartment at the back of my brain

**Author's Note:**

> Source from #3: https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/cycle-of-abuse/


End file.
